Cleaning and Stain Removal - Inchworm stains on Vinyl Boat Seats!

My boat was stored for the winter under some oak trees. In the few hours that it was exposed to the elements after I opened it for the season, it was inundated with inchworm feces! Little brown specs that landed everywhere. It was no problem to wash off the fiberglass, but it left some incredibly stubborn stains on the vinyl seats.

Here's what I've tried: Boat soap, detergent, Windex, 409, various commercial vinyl cleaners such as Tuff Stuff, Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, Clorox Clean-Up with bleach, Soft Scrub with bleach, straight bleach at 1:1 with water, and even WD-40. The stains did not budge, although the white parts of the seats have never looked better! Any other ideas???

Vinyl is porous and tends to absorb stains. Stains are often permanent. You may try an oxy-whatever (oxygenating bleach) product and allow it to soak on stains. You may also try an enzyme digester cleaner for organic stains and allow it to stand on stains.

Learn more about cleaning vinyl on this website at http://www.doityourself.com/stry/vinyl

I learned the following info today (5/22/07) from 3M, West Marine and the upholstering company that manufactures the vinyl seating for the brand-name boat that I own. I too have a vinyl seat staining problem.
3M makes several marine prods for cleaning & restoring vinyl.Check web-site.
also, Tide makes white, flat "bleach Sheets" that supposed to help if wetted and placed on the discolored areas for a little while.
also, as a more potent solution, try hairspray.
With any of the above, try on small area initially to check cleaning results and to check amount of degrading of the vinyl.

If you already have direct experience,hopefully successful, on this problem,
kindly post on this site. Thanks, in advance.

Proceed with caution if using hairspray. Hairspray contains alcohol, lacquers, and other ingredients. Alcohol, which is a solvent, is the ingredient in hairspray that works as a cleaner. Thus, hairspray is often recommended for the removal of ball point ink. Lacquers, however, can compound cleaning problems. Inch worm stains are organic. Solvents tend to be ineffective on organic stains, as already demonstrated by the WD-40. If use of bleach products have already failed to remove the inch worm stains, it is doubtful that the Tide bleach sheets would be helpful.

Enzyme digester cleaners have been found to be most effective on organic stains. Applying to stains and giving enzymes time to digest stains, might work. Again, the stains have been absorbed into the porous vinyl. Vinyl is easiy stained because of its porosity.